


Hold Fast

by laetificat



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Sex, M/M, Non-Human Genitalia, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 22:19:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17353667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laetificat/pseuds/laetificat
Summary: He had often fancied he could have felt the pulse of the ship itself beneath him in those moments, had the ship a heart to beat for him.PWP but with plenty of feelings.





	Hold Fast

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't really take place at any particular point in the canon, but my head it's in an AU where Laurence and Temeraire aren't sent to Australia, but are allowed to stay in Britain and help the country rebuild after the war.

The morning was chill and clear, a low fog shrouding the countryside like a soft white blanket, dotted with knots of dark trees and the delicate thread of hedgerows. Temeraire’s wingbeats were a pleasant rhythm, his breath steaming from his nostrils like spray parting around the bow of a ship. 

Laurence leaned to peer down past his shoulder, enjoying the sight of his homeland sliding by below them and the feeling of being alone on Temeraire’s back, as he had not been for quite some time. Being able to spend some time together was one of the few advantages of being sent on routine patrol. 

He was about to ask Temeraire if he wanted to return via the coast road to take in the sight of the seals bearing their pups and perhaps do a little hunting, when the dragon made a sudden strange chuffing sound and brought himself up short, almost throwing Laurence out of his seat. 

“Oh!” Temeraire said, swivelling his head around as he hovered in place. “What is that smell?” 

“What do you mean?” Laurence asked, tucking his notebook into his jacket pocket and fetching out his telescope. 

“There!” Temeraire cried, turning on a wing and beating towards a low valley. As they crested the rise before it, Laurence caught sight of a Yellow Reaper lying in a field beside a small cottage. Temeraire began a low, strange hum in his throat as he saw her. The Reaper lifted her head, seeing them come on, and a figure ran out at once from the cottage, waving his arms. 

Laurence stood and leaned out from Temeraire’s shoulder against his waist straps, catching the sound of the man’s cries on the wind. 

“Take him away!” The man was shouting, with all the lung-strength of a practised captain. “Take him away, she’s in heat! Get him gone at once or we won’t be able to separate them!”

Laurence blinked for a moment, swallowing the man’s words, then swiftly stooped to pat Temeraire’s neck. 

“Temeraire,” he shouted over the noise of their passage, “we can’t stop here. We’re not allowed to stay.”

Temeraire glanced back out of the corner of his eye. His ruff was half-raised, the queer hum in his throat still rising. He seemed to be taking very deep breaths of the female dragon’s scent, his nostrils flaring.

“Whyever not? She seems very pleasant,” he said, easing into a circle around the field. The Reaper had sat up on her haunches and was bobbing her head up and down, as if nodding at them, her wings held wide from her body. “Very pleasant indeed.”

“It will cause problems,” Laurence called, watching the captain below them attempting to talk to his charge, likely making a similar line of argument given his gesturing. “She’s.. um. She’s waiting for someone else. You wouldn’t want to offend him, would you? Or prove me a bad captain, to not be able to persuade you otherwise?”

“I.. I suppose,” Temeraire replied, uncertain. As always, the thought of treating Laurence badly was what broke through to him. Laurence tried not to feel guilty to use the dragon’s own feelings against him in such a way. It was for the best, he reminded himself. The thought was as bitter as the wind which numbed his face and hands.

“Come, let’s away, before he arrives,” Laurence called, stroking Temeraire’s neck in a consoling manner. “Come along, my dear.”

Temeraire allowed himself a handful more wingbeats, then swung about and made away from the valley, flying perhaps a little faster than he needed to. Laurence settled back in the cold breeze of their passage, quite relieved at the close call and already trying to fix the man’s appearance in his mind so he could ask someone at the covert if they knew the name of the captain. Perhaps he would write him and apologise.

However, Temeraire remained tense, his wings carving out the miles in much the same way a man paces when he is alarmed, and presently began to shiver oddly, his ruff still raised. Concern pulled Laurence out of his thoughts; once more setting aside his plans, he directed Temeraire to land in a nearby fallow field. 

Temeraire came down quite without his usual manners, talons raking up the dark earth, stirring the fog to rippling around them. He made a soft crooning noise as Laurence half-slid down his shoulder to land in the damp grass. A small huddle of sheep attempted to make themselves part of the hedge, almost falling over each other to get away from Temeraire. The dragon didn’t seem to notice them; his eyes glittered as he turned his head to look down at his captain.

“Laurence, I do feel strange,” Temeraire said. He clawed at the ground, wings half-raised, clearly uneasy. His tail lashed, striking a nearby tree with a solid whack. “I can’t stop thinking about that dragon. She wanted to make an egg with me.. and I want to with her. And I can’t stop feeling it. No matter what else I try to think. I want to, Laurence. I do.” 

Laurence frowned, concerned. He walked forward to place a hand against Temeraire’s soft muzzle. It didn’t feel hot beneath his palm, nor did Temeraire seem otherwise unwell. He silently racked his brain for something appropriate to say, remembering the talks he’d had as a young man with the midshipmen and ship’s boys he grew up alongside, rough wisdom passed along with a low chuckle and a pat on the shoulder. 

“Temeraire, don’t worry. It’s perfectly natural for you to feel -- ”

Temeraire made an odd noise, somewhere between his earlier hum and a trill, rather like a bird if a bird were the size of a modest house. Laurence realised his hand had strayed and he was touching the sensitive tendrils that spilled from Temeraire’s muzzle. Temeraire bucked his head beneath Laurence’s hand, pushing his nose against him, almost knocking him off his feet. The spicy heat of his breath enveloped them both. 

“Laurence,” he rumbled, and Laurence was abruptly aware he was speaking to a creature who could swallow him whole with complete ease. Temeraire turned his head slightly, so Laurence’s hand fell once again on his twitching tendril. “Do not stop. Please.” 

“I -- ” Laurence began, flinching his hand back. 

“Please, Laurence,” Temeraire continued, his voice taking on a note of desperation, of pain. He seemed to shiver. “I need it. It hurts so.” 

Laurence started at that, the strangeness of the moment falling away in a heart-catch of worry. He took a step back, looking around at Temeraire's body. Temeraire was sitting oddly, his back arched and legs gathered and splayed slightly as if to protect his belly. He was breathing deeply and strongly, as if in the midst of a battle flight. If he had been a horse, Laurence suspected he would have been stamping and rolling his eyes. 

“You’re hurt? Come, let’s go back to the camp at once and let Mr. Dorset look at you.” Laurence started towards him, disquiet rising in his chest like a clenched fist. 

“No, Laurence, I can’t! I simply can’t, I can barely think enough to talk to you, let alone fly properly. I can’t stop smelling her scent. I need.. I need to..” He made a strange noise in the back of his throat and began to move himself rhythmically against the ground, as if trying to scratch an itch. Or as if trying to --

Laurence realised the problem in a single thunderclap of a moment. An instinctive blush warmed his cheeks and he immediately felt ashamed of it, for it was clear Temeraire could not help his condition. The private, staid part of him wanted to turn his back and leave Temeraire alone to arrange things to his liking. Just a few months ago he would perhaps have done so without question and considered the matter well dealt with. But another, newer part felt desperately unhappy to see Temeraire suffering so, and yearned to do something to help. Temeraire deserved better.

“Well,” he said out loud, rather before he realised he was going to speak at all. He raised his hand, then lowered it. “Well. Can I.. is there anything I can.. would you like some privacy?”

Temeraire swung his head to peer down at him, the stiffened ruff and the rapid flare of his nostrils giving him a rather Medieval appearance, wreathing his muzzle in steam. He snorted and shook his head a little, as if to clear his mind.

“Perhaps.. perhaps you could..” He shifted, half-sitting down as if to show his belly, and slowly lifted one back leg. Laurence wasn’t sure what he was about until the movement revealed the source of his frustration.

As long as Laurence was tall and thick around as a tree trunk, tapered and flared and pale blue-grey -- the same shade, Laurence realised later, as the eye-spots upon his wings; the Chinese breeders had been precise indeed -- Temeraire’s sex jutted from the opening between his legs. 

Laurence felt suddenly faint, as if the blood in his body were trying to rush both up and down simultaneously. He had, of course, considered this moment, remotely, while making his way through the various treatises on dragon health that were part of an aviator’s training. There had been an entire chapter on dragon mating habits, as well as the maintenance of a dragon's personal health. It had even gone so far as to suggest that a rider may need to “provide manual assistance” in the event of a difficult mating -- the corps naturally placing more value in a successful breeding than an aviator’s dignity. 

But he had never quite expected to feel a faint stab of unmistakable lust, shivering in his gut like a cast spear, making his palms damp and his trousers a little tighter than before. Maybe it was the sight of Temeraire so inflamed with desire, sides heaving and tongue darting out to taste the air, almost helpless with need and begging for his assistance. Maybe it was the roll of dragon pheromones that rose from him onto the cold air. Or maybe it was something else. Something he could not even think of, or have to reconsider everything he knew about himself -- or thought he knew. So his mind shied from it, and he tried to push it all away. 

Temeraire, unfortunately, noticed his moment of hesitation. He lowered his leg a little, saying in a meek voice, “of course, you do not -- ” 

“No, no,” Laurence said, as much to himself as to Temeraire, striding through the grass towards his dragon.

Temeraire’s flank was wet from the grass and warm under his hands as he scrambled up onto it. As he drew closer, he noticed the scent of Temeraire’s lust, warm and peppery, reptilian and marine. It gave him pause, but he endeavoured, not allowing himself to hesitate as he placed his palms on the object of Temeraire’s attention. 

Just like cleaning his ruff, he reminded himself, or pulling a splinter from his shoulder --

It was slick and unexpectedly hot under his fingers, hotter than the inside of Temeraire’s mouth in the times Laurence had investigated his teeth. Laurence slid his hands upwards, fascinated despite himself at the way the ridges and veins ran down its length, like melted and re-frozen ice down the side of a water barrel. It was beautiful and strange and utterly alien, striated like marble and both soft and firm to the touch, drawing his eye and his fingertips to investigate. 

Temeraire made a noise that was somewhere between a croon and a trill and shifted suddenly, so Laurence had to grip Temeraire’s cock a little tighter to stop himself from stumbling, and this seemed to make it worse, for Temeraire moved again, his hips lifting a little from the ground. Laurence re-positioned himself to brace himself against Temeraire’s belly, determined, and slipped his hands around and up again, almost rubbing. He thought distantly that it was rather like holystoning a deck, which he had always enjoyed. That same feeling of closeness, of working for mutual benefit, of performing service to that which worked so hard on his behalf. As a lad he had often fancied he could have felt the pulse of the ship itself beneath him in those moments, had the ship a heart to beat for him.

And now, well --

He was lost in these thoughts as a spill of pearly liquid ran down from the pointed tip, and he just about managed to step back to avoid it splashing his front. 

“Oh, Laurence, that feels wonderful, do continue,” Temeraire purred. “I shall try to stay still.”

Somehow this declaration made the act more intimate than before; Laurence felt a blush rising again in his cheeks, but he set to, more confident now, gliding his hands through the runnel of liquid so they were slick and hot with Temeraire's essence, pushing gently with the heels of his palms as he rubbed up and down. The slippery fluid tingled pleasantly against his skin, warming the joints and pads of his hands. Temeraire's cock throbbed beneath his touch and the dragon was making a noise rather like a big cat being stroked, his tail coiling back and forth across the grass. 

“Faster, please, Laurence,” Temeraire breathed, sounding so much like a lover reclining on the pillows beneath him that Laurence felt another abrupt squeeze of desire low in his gut and between his legs. Praying that they were out of earshot of any farmers or field hands that might be nearby, he obeyed, breathing in the smell of Temeraire, sea-salt brine and cinnamon, coating his tongue and throat with it, spurred on by Temeraire's soft noises of pleasure and the helpless rise and fall of his hips. 

He didn't realise at first that he was breathing just as strongly as Temeraire, nor that he had become achingly rigid as an iron bar, until Temeraire made a trembling cooing noise and an unexpected moan escaped Laurence's own lips, in sympathy or shared joy. Laurence stopped abruptly, reaching down to brush his fingertips over the front of his trousers, groaning despite himself as he touched his cock. The warmth in his hands seemed to be spreading through his limbs, filling him with a feeling of contentment, of lassitude and longing.

“Laurence?” Temeraire’s voice was close behind him; the steam of his presence hot against Laurence’s back. Slowly, feeling a little as if he were in some dream, Laurence raised his hand to his lips, taking in the delicious scent of dragon cock with every breath. He touched a finger to his tongue. 

Of course, he thought, tasting dark spices and metal and a feeling like a shot of cheap rum racing through his blood. He remembered seeing, in a shop in Peking, a great arrangement of guides in the “bedroom arts” with many detailed paintings, supposedly to please and cleanse the spirit. It had set him to blushing, but he now realised that perhaps the Chinese had decided to extend this sharing of pleasure to their dragon charges as well -- how civilised it was, to make sure the beasts you were breeding for warfare could enjoy the act.

Laurence reached out a hand to steady himself and found Temeraire's muzzle beneath it, his soft skin passing like silk under Laurence's fluid-slick palm. 

“Laurence, are you well? You do not need to carry on, if you don't want to.” The dragon said, his words carried on a piquant exhalation. Laurence stroked him, absently. 

“I.. yes, my dear, I'm well. I'm perfectly fine.” He looked down at his fingers, realising that he had spoken the truth. There was no wrongness warring in his heart, only relief. A feeling like being given permission for something he didn't know he wanted, and finding he wanted it very much.

Want. Yes --

Temeraire nudged his hand, then flicked out his tongue. The touch of it on Laurence's skin inflamed him all over again and he drew in a sharp breath. 

“Good,” Temeraire said, for once without his usual loquaciousness. He made a chuffing sound, his body moving ever so slightly beneath Laurence's feet. “You taste.. Laurence, could you touch me again?” 

Laurence let out a shuddering sigh, reaching out at once to resume his massage of Temeraire's most intimate parts. As he did so, he let his other hand fall to his trousers, undoing the fastenings with practised fingers. His cock ached beneath the fabric and he almost cried aloud when his touch finally reached it, reliving a blissful split second memory of being a young man aboard a ship, blood hot with new desires, finding release within his bunk in the pale hours of the dog watch.

He gripped himself as his palm slipped over the ridges and whorls of Temeraire's member, drawing a trilling purr from the dragon. His own cock throbbed in his hand, his heart beating hard and sure in his chest. 

It would be quick, if he started, so he didn't start. Only gripped and held, drawing on years of patience, determined to make this last. 

He began to seek out those places on Temeraire's cock which seemed the most sensitive, keeping half an ear on the timbre of Temeraire's low noises. His fingertips explored upwards, caressing, until he found a place just beneath the tip and Temeraire trembled underneath him and said, “oh Laurence, yes.”

Yes.

Laurence leaned up to press his mouth to that place, licking and kissing Temeraire's skin, lips and tongue burning in a way that was almost painful but sent bolts of pleasure through his body. He wrapped his free arm around Temeraire's cock and felt the dragon shifting beneath him, his sealegs keeping him upright as the heave and swell of Temeraire's animal response rolled through them both. His shirt front was slippery and soaked against his skin as Temeraire began thrusting himself into Laurence's grip, his keening becoming high pitched and desperate. 

Laurence's hand was moving on his own cock and he found he was also making noise, careless and wanton as he had never been with any human partner. His knees threatened to buckle but he clung to Temeraire, turning his face so his cheek was pressed against him, feeling and smelling and tasting Temeraire over and over, his whole world filled with him, and it felt right, so right, at last. 

Temeraire's body hitched and shuddered, his cock throbbing against Laurence's belly and chest. A small roar escaped him.

“Oh, oh Laurence,” he sang out, and there was a scalding wetness raining down upon Laurence's shoulder and along his arm; the sound and feel of Temeraire's release brought his own thundering through him, a wave of pleasure that was almost strong enough to be painful, rising seemingly from the soles of his feet, racing through his body, clenching his heart and spurting out between his fingers, his hips rolling against Temeraire as he cried out, helplessly, and didn't notice the tears turning his vision into a thousand glittering shards. 

A moment's blurred pause, the sound of Temeraire's breathing and the thunder of their heartbeats. 

Laurence came back to himself slowly, as if from an ague. He had lost his footing and had slid down onto Temeraire's leg, and was leaning against his belly, still clutching himself. Carefully, he let go and wiped his palms over his trousers -- though they were scarcely less soiled. He looked out over a field half-misted with fog. The thought of standing or even turning his head seemed like rather a lot of effort. The cold air began to make itself known against his wet skin.

“Laurence?” Temeraire's voice broke into his thoughts. He moved a little, to see Temeraire looking at him. The earth around the dragon was rent in great black furrows, where he had clearly been clawing at it in an effort to stay still. Temeraire looked much returned to normal, his ruff low on his neck. He kneaded the loose earth in a nervous way. 

“Are you,” he began, then paused. He looked, Laurence realised, almost embarrassed. “You're not hurt?”

“No, Temeraire,” Laurence replied, his voice catching a little. He cleared his throat. “I'm quite well.”

“Oh good!” Temeraire visibly relaxed. “You were so quiet, I thought perhaps you had taken some hurt. But I'm so glad you're okay. You are okay?” He leaned towards Laurence, as if to sniff him over. Laurence reached out automatically to pet his muzzle, finding himself glad for the physical contact. 

“I'm fine, really,” Laurence replied. Indeed, he felt it was so. Something in his soul felt unburdened; a knot, undone. A question answered. 

“I think I could use a bath.” He glanced up and around at Temeraire's belly, which was splattered liberally with evidence of the dragon's pleasure. “And you too.”

Temeraire nudged him happily, turning his head a little to be scratched in his favourite places. 

“I spied a rather nice lake not far from here,” he said. Laurence winced at the thought of the icy water. 

“Perhaps in a moment, my dear,” he suggested, stroking Temeraire's cheek. “I think for now I should just.. like to sit here with you.”

“I would like that too,” Temeraire replied. “Very much.”


End file.
